On Monday, I mentioned that I may be gone for a while because I’m moving my site. Bluehost had a bad habit of going down once per month, so I decided to move to another host, DreamHost. DreamHost has turned into NightmareHost as my site now routinely takes over 10 seconds to load. Not good. Do I go with unreliable or slow? I don’t know.

I hope that the issue is mine and DreamHost is vindicated. I’ve spent hours trying to resolve with no progress and little help from their support.

In the meantime, you get a quick and dirty Friday Gratitude post.

Censored (and Miracles)

Miracles happen every day. A beautiful sunset. The laugh of a baby. A first kiss. The sound of the waves crashing against the rocks.

Are you throwing up yet?

All of that stuff is bullshit. Well, it’s all cool, but you know what I mean.

But a real miracle happened at FinCon last week. Here is what went down on Wednesday/Thursday:

• 10pm: Meet up for a beer tasting party on the deck of Gwen’s awesome Airbnb.

Wooot!!!!!

• 11pm: Drink lots of beer.

Wooot!!!!!!!!!

• 12am: More beer!

wooo0oot!

• 1am: BEEEEEEEER!

Wo0odsfdklajdf&$##??!?

• 2am: beeeeeeeeeeeerrr.??!%!?!!!

BURP!!!

• 3am: Huh, what?

<CENSORED>

• 3:01am: Mr. Waffles on Wednesday and I close out the party and stumble back to the hotel. In the lobby, we search for more beer. Thankfully, everything was closed. We retreat to our rooms and pass out.
• 7:01am: Wake up, whimper, groan. curse my poor judgement and go back to bed.
• 9:00am: I wake up again. It was at this time that I realize that my voice is gone. Any attempts to formulate words result in deep, frog-like sounds. This is bad. At 3pm, I’m supposed to be recording the Mad Fientist podcast. After that, I’m supposed to be participating in a FIRE roundtable. Both of these events require that I speak.

shit.

• 10am: Attempts at falling back to sleep are futile. I try my voice again with the same result.

Shit.

• 11am: I watch a crappy 90s movie. Still no voice.

Shit!

• 12pm: I still sound like a frog. I tell Mrs. 1500 to tell the Mad Fientist that I’m out for the podcast.

SHIT!

• 1pm: My hunger is back. I eat a salad. Still no voice though.

SHIT!!!

• 2pm: I try my voice again and boom, it works (!!!!!).

MIRACLE!!!!

Notorious P.o.F.

Mrs. 1500 and I joined the Mad Fientist to interview the Physician on FIRE (PoF). I won’t let the cat out of the bag, but here are a couple highlights (lowlights?):

• I asked the PoF if he ever brought his work home with him. And by work, I mean drugs.
• Mrs. 1500 serenaded the PoF with gangster rap (Anesthetize by the Notorious P.o.F.).

After these juvenile antics, I don’t blame the Mad Fientist if he never invites us back. It was worth it though. It’s like eating half the bag of Oreos. You know you may be a little sad later and suffer the next day, but you do it anyway.

Other Fun People

Here are the other cool people I bumped into. And by bumped, I ran into them when I wasn’t completely with it. In no specific order:

Grant (Millennial Money): This guy is killing it.

Gwen (Fiery Millennials): Thank you Gwen for sharing that awesome rooftop deck for our party! I’m so glad no one jumped off, broke a bottle or got arrested.

The Happy Philosopher: I’ve chatted with HP over email, so it was great to meet him in person.

JD Roth: I’ve met him a couple times prior, but it’s still surreal talking to one of the guys who set my life on a new course. I’m always like:

Hey JD, nice to see you. How is Port… Wait, holy shit, I’m talking to JD!!!! **contain yourself idiot**

Tanja (Our Next Life) and Liz (Frugalwoods): These two had stellar presentations. If you ever have a chance to hear them speak, do it.

FIRECracker and Wander from Millennial Revolution: Fun couple who I wish I had more time to chat with.

Ryan Inman (Physician Wealth Services): I barely scratched the surface with Ryan, but I look forward to meeting him when I’m in Las Vegas in December.

A Rebel Spy: This spy and me planning some stuff. In the meantime, find him here: Adventuring Along

Miss Mazuma: MM and I have some peculiar ties to Chicago. Small world MM.

Reader M: I met M for BBQ and pie. In a paradoxical moment, M and I were sitting on an outdoor patio taking about inner peace when approximately 3,978 idiots on motorcycles flew down the street, revving their engines and deafening anyone within 50 yards.

Michael (Uncommon Dream): Wolverine’s stunt double. Seriously:

Wealth Well Done: Fascinating dude who went through something horrible and came out on the other side a better person for it.

Chad (Coach) Carson: Chad participated in my wife’s pranking of me. That’s OK Coach. Just remember that I don’t forget!

Mr. PIE: I want to go back to Scotland.

Mrs. Adventure Rich: We only chatted a little at the beer party before the other beer party (readers, do you see the theme here?). I wish we had more time…

ESI Money: ESI, when are we going to meet up in Colorado?

Brad and Jonathan (Choose FI): These two are killing it in the podcast space. Check them out.

Mrs. Montana (Montana Money Adventures): I really looked forward to meeting her, but then only got to talk for like 10 seconds. Next time…

Mrs. Picky Pincher (Picky Pinchers): Yet another person that I wanted to talk to and we ended up hardly talking to at all.

Fritz (Retirement Manifesto): I have no idea what Fritz and I talked about, but I know that I liked talking to him.

Nathan Barry: Founder of ConvertKit! As cool as ConvertKit is, I like Nathan because he was genuine and thoughtful. Is that redundant? Probably. But it’s OK because Nathan is a good guy who has these qualities in abundance.

I know I’ve missed a lot of you. My memories are still clouded from beer and severe sleep deprivation. I’m sorry. And I’m pretty sure beer kicked some of those memories right out of my head forever. Bleh. I’ll do better next time. Probably not.

However, if there is anything I’m certain of, it’s that I love the FI community. You all are awesome! Except for those of you who played that prank on me. You’re semi-awesome. Not nearly as good as awesome, but still much better than OK.